Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali

Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali (commonly referred to simply as Abdullah Pasha; 1801–unknown) was the Ottoman governor (wali) of Sidon Eyalet between May 1820 and May 1832, with a nine-month interruption in 1822–23. Like his predecessors Jazzar Pasha and Sulayman Pasha, Abdullah Pasha ruled from the port city of Acre. During his reign, all of Palestine and the Syrian coastline came under his jurisdiction. Among his major military victories was his survival of an imperial-backed siege of Acre in 1822 instigated by the Farhi family in retaliation for Abdullah's execution of his mentor Haim Farhi, the suppression of revolts in Mount Lebanon and Jerusalem in 1824 and 1826, respectively, and the 1831 capture of the Sanur fortress.

While Abdullah oversaw a period of relative stability in Syria, during his reign the region also experienced economic reversals and increasing poverty, while Acre's key role as an export center of Levantine cotton and olive oil increasingly diminished. Abdullah was the last governor of Sidon to rule from Acre and his defeat to the forces of Muhammad Ali of Egypt in 1832 marked the end of Acre as a political and economic power. Following his defeat, he lived in exile in Egypt and then the Hejaz, where he died.

Early life and career Abdullah Bey (as he was known before becoming governor) was born in Acre in 1801 to Ali Pasha Khazindar, a Circassian Muslim mamluk of Jazzar Pasha (r. 1776–1804) and later the katkhuda (deputy) of Sulayman Pasha al-Adil (1805–1819). Abdullah's mother was from the coastal city of Jableh and belonged to a family of ashraf (descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad). Ali Pasha died in 1814, but while on his deathbed he asked Haim Farhi, Sulayman's chief adviser, to look after Abdullah, then 13. Farhi gladly accepted the responsibility and from then on lobbied for Abdullah to succeed Sulayman, who had no male heirs. Abdullah's mother also played a role in lobbying both Farhi and Sulayman to elevate her son. Farhi, who contemporaries described as Sulayman's unofficial "partner in power", did not view young Abdullah as a threat to his influence and sought to promote him over more powerful potential successors to Sulayman such as the latter's nephew Mustafa Bey or Muhammad Abu-Nabbut of Jaffa.

Sulayman looked favourably to Abdullah's potential succession and appointed him katkhuda in his father's place, an appointment which surprised many in Sulayman's administration due to Abdullah's young age. Nonetheless, Sulayman sought to publicly downplay Abdullah's political rise by imposing certain rules on him. Among these were that Abdullah was to sit among government employees and administrators instead of having his own office like Ali Pasha had. He was forbidden from eating or drinking coffee with Sulayman and his hand was not to be kissed by anyone. According to historian Mikhail Mishaqah, "those who had loved Sulayman" beckoned Farhi to lobby the Sublime Porte (imperial Ottoman government) to appoint Mustafa Bey as successor, but Farhi retorted that Abdullah "was born in this country and we took great pains to teach him Arabic, nice handwriting and the legal sciences" and that as katkhuda he gained "experience in governing" and it would not be "right to promote over him someone whose Arabic is weak and who neither knows the legal system nor has experience in governing."

Through his Constantinople-based contact Hesekiel al-Baghdadi, a fellow Jew and a banker with close ties to the powerful Janissary corps, Farhi lobbied the Sublime Porte for five months before it agreed to appoint Abdullah Pasha as Wali of Sidon and assign him the rank of vizier. Bribes to various imperial officials and influential figures in Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, amounted to about 11 million piastres. On 27 January 1820, Abdullah was confirmed as governor of Sidon. People in the province welcomed Abdullah's succession because of the perception that he would follow Sulayman's model, which had been generally positive for both the inhabitants and local leaders.

Tensions with Farhi Abdullah continued to maintain his trustful relationship with Farhi, to the point where he stored the treasury in Farhi's home. Farhi continued to wield great influence over Acre-based administration. According to Mishaqah, Abdullah often spent his time with local, lower-class Muslims and joined them in dhikr sessions (Sufi ritual of remembrance involving dancing). Farhi disapproved of Abdullah's behavior and advised him to instead participate in dhikrs with men of higher social rank, such as the qadi, the mufti, the naqib al-ashraf or members of the ulema. They feared Farhi could displace them from their new-found positions of influence with the governor. According to Mishaqah, They accused Farhi of being an "arrogant Jew" who manipulated his way into power, controlled the province's wealth from his own home, and questioned how a Jew could be allowed to govern in the interests of Muslims. Moreover, they told Abdullah that Sulayman could be forgiven for allowing Farhi to become influential because Sulayman was not versed in Islamic law, but that Abdullah did not have that excuse, claiming that the imams of Islam's four main schools of jurisprudence forbade a Jew from holding office in charge of Muslims. After these demotions, Farhi requested to retire to Damascus, but Abdullah did not allow it, viewing Farhi's presence in Damascus as a potential threat to his rule. Abdullah ultimately deposed Bashir for his failure to pay tribute and the latter exiled himself to the Hauran region south of Damascus. Two other, apparently Muslim, emirs from the Shihab dynasty, Emir Hasan ibn Ali and Emir Salman ibn Sayyid-Ahmad, were appointed to replace Bashir II in Mount Lebanon, although Abdullah detached the areas of Tuffah, Kharrub, Jezzine, Byblos and Jabal al-Rihan from the latter.

Bashir's successors proved less capable of paying tribute than Bashir. Abdullah responded favourably, writing that Bashir "will not see from me other than what will gladden him" and summoned him to Shefa-'Amr, a village in Acre's vicinity. The two formed a military alliance in 1821 against Darwish Pasha.

Conflict with Damascus In retaliation against Farhi's execution, influential members of the Farhi family in Damascus and Istanbul, instigated the Ottoman authorities against Abdullah Pasha. In early 1822, armed confrontations between the forces of the Damascus Eyalet under governor Darwish Pasha and Abdullah's forces over territorial claims in the Golan Heights, Nablus and the Beqaa Valley occurred frequently. Darwish Pasha's actions were being instigated by the Farhi family and Abdullah sought support from Emir Bashir, writing to him that "the Jews have conspired with the Empire against him" and that the imperial authorities were attempting to dismiss Abdullah from the governorship of Sidon, which would then be annexed by Damascus Eyalet. Emir Bashir answered his summons to Acre, where Abdullah's mother told him "My son is your lord by virtue of his rank, but in view of age and your efforts on his behalf you are his son" and proceeded to concede that Abdullah had acted rashly with Bashir in the past and that he erred in having Farhi killed. Bashir replied that he would continue to serve Abdullah and fight in his service.

After meeting with Abdullah, the latter asked Bashir to mobilize his forces and meet Abdullah's troops at the Daughters of Jacob Bridge. From there, the coalition was to move against Darwish Pasha in Damascus. Emir Bashir and his allies mustered some 12,000 fighting men, while Abdullah's forces numbered 4,000 under the command of Ibrahim Agha al-Kurdi. Darwish Pasha's troops, backed by the Druze Yazbaki faction and Emir Mansur Shihab II assembled at Mezzeh outside of Damascus, where the two sides confronted each other in May 1822. Darwish Pasha's cannons in Mezzeh gave him an initial advantage over Abdullah's coalition, but once the latter's cavalry charged against the town, the battle turned into a rout for Darwish's men, 1,200 of whom were killed. Forty soldiers from Abdullah's coalition died in the battle.

Abdullah's forces besieged Damascus, but did not enter it, preferring to use the siege to leverage support from Mustafa Pasha, the governor of Aleppo. Abdullah had been previously warned that Mustafa Pasha and Bahram Pasha of Adana were given orders to support Darwish Pasha. The siege of Damascus was consequently lifted and Abdullah's forces retreated to Acre to reinforce his hold over the city. The siege was supported financially by Salamun Farhi of Damascus,

The Sublime Porte issued a demand for Abdullah to pay a fine of 25,000 purses to compensate for the expenses of the siege, and detached the districts of Tripoli, Latakia, Gaza and Jaffa from Sidon Eyalet until Abdullah made the payment. Abdullah had exhausted his financial resources during the siege and decided to impose the entire fine on Sheikh Bashir Jumblatt of the Shuf in Mount Lebanon as a punitive measure for defecting from Abdullah's coalition during Darwish Pasha's campaign. Emir Bashir intervened so that Sheikh Bashir would only pay a third of the fine, while Emir Bashir and his subjects would make up the remainder. In 1824, the Sublime Porte restored the districts of Gaza and Jaffa to Abdullah's jurisdiction. Jumblatt fled the area. He was pursued, arrested and sent to Abdullah Pasha in Acre.

Siege of Sanur In October 1830, the Sublime Porte assigned the districts of Jerusalem, Nablus and Hebron to Abdullah Pasha's jurisdiction. The districts were traditionally part of Damascus Eyalet, but the latter's governor, Mehmed Pasha, had been unable to collect the miri (annual tax designated for the Hajj pilgrimage caravan) from them. The Ottomans also feared an imminent invasion of Syria by Muhammad Ali and viewed Acre, however weakened, as the sole power centre that could confront such an invasion. Thus, the imperial authorities sought to strengthen Abdullah's political position. Abdullah proceeded to have the fortress destroyed.

Fall Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt led the 1831–32 siege against Abdullah in Acre, which led to his surrender and exile from the city. In November 1831, Muhammad Ali, who had long demanded control of Syria as compensation for his assistance to the Ottomans in their war with the Greeks, launched an invasion of Syria under the command of his son Ibrahim Pasha. As a public justification of his conquest of Sidon, Muhammad Ali alleged that Abdullah was harboring 6,000 Egyptian fellahin who were dodging conscription, corvee or taxes. Ibrahim Pasha's troops faced no resistance as they entered Palestine, easily taking Gaza and Jaffa. When Ibrahim landed in Syria, Emir Bashir defected from his alliance with Abdullah and backed Ibrahim Pasha, and Abdullah accused Bashir of being "a treacherous and ungrateful infidel".

The siege of Acre began in December 1831 after Ibrahim's army captured the nearby port town of Haifa, where Abdullah maintained a summer residence. Abdullah had been seeking safety with his family in a bunker in the city,

Not much is known about Abdullah's military forces. However, it is known that they generally consisted of Arab Hawwara irregulars, Kurdish Dalat cavalry irregulars and Maghrebi mercenaries. By the time of Acre's 1831–32 siege, Husayn Agha and Hamadi Agha were the commanders of the Hawwara, Shamdin Agha (a sole leftover of Sulayman's administration) was commander of the Dalat cavalry, and Ali Agha Farahat was the commander of the Maghrebi mercenaries. The general estimate of Abdullah's troop numbers was about 2,000 fighting men, although at times the number could have been higher. For instance, in 1824 his standing army consisted of 3,000 men, mostly Hawwara irregulars, as well as Dalat, Maghrebi and Albanian units. Abdullah often relied on the military support of the Druze clans and Emir Bashir's forces from Mount Lebanon and possibly the Shia Muslim clans of Jabal Amil. In order to make up for declining revenues, Abdullah reversed the free market trend set under Sulayman Pasha by extending Acre's monopoly on Syria's cotton exports to imports coming into Acre as well. These policies resulted in Acre being bypassed by merchants and traders, with cotton from Nablus being shipped to Beirut instead. The French consul also relocated to Beirut, which was prospering at Acre's expense. In a report, the French consul wrote that Abdullah "governs as if politics advised him to surround himself with ruins, to the point that all the country under his control presents a picture of isolation and poverty." According to Philipp, "only the instability of politics in Damascus ... and the preoccupation of the Ottomans with internal reforms and the Greek war disguised the weakness of Abdallah Pasha's regime".